Much has been made about Teez Tabor's speed, or lack of it, since the Detroit Lions made him the 53rd overall pick of last month's NFL draft. Tabor said Friday he's looking forward to revisiting the topic with his critics in a few years.

"I play football, I don’t run track," Tabor said. "I’m trying out for the NFL, not the Olympics so I’m in a pretty good spot."

Lions cornerback Teez Tabor catches a ball during the team's rookie minicamp in Allen Park on May ...more

Lions cornerback Teez Tabor catches a ball during the team's rookie minicamp in Allen Park on May 12, 2017.

Paul Sancya, AP

Tabor was widely considered one of the best cornerbacks in college football last year, but he slipped to the second round of the draft after he ran slower than expected 40-yard dash times at the NFL combine (4.62 seconds) and his Florida pro day (in the 4.7s).

"If you don’t have really good instincts and really good feel and anticipation, it doesn’t matter if you’re 4.2 or 4.9," Quinn said. "If you don’t have those anticipation, instincts, awareness, route recognition, all those things, I think I put those higher up than how fast the guy ran at the combine.”

Tabor said the criticism has bothered him "a little bit."

"It adds fuel to the fire," he said. "It’s like when you tell somebody they can’t do something, you’re basically making them try even harder to do what you tell them they can’t do."

Tabor is expected to contend for playing time as a rookie in a Lions secondary that returns Darius Slay and Nevin Lawson at cornerback and added D.J. Hayden in free agency.

He said he doesn't yet have a sense of how the Lions plan to use him, either in the slot or as an outside cornerback, but that "if they ask me to long snap, I'm going to go out there and long snap."

For now, Tabor said he's working to learn his new playbook - "It’s like you speak English, but you’re trying to learn French. You’re saying the same thing but the verbiage is definitely a little bit different," he said - as well as tend to a hamstring injury that's been an on-and-off issue for some time.

The injury flared up during a pre-draft workout for the Lions, though Tabor said it did not hold him back at last week's rookie minicamp.

"It’s been nagging," he said. "I’m just glad I finally got up here and got with a lot of good trainers that I can really start to rehab and start to get it all the way back right."

Tabor said he expects to be 100% "by the time training camp comes," at which point everyone will get a better read on his speed and playing ability against NFL competition.

"I’m just a guy who wants to go out here and do anything that I can to help the team," Tabor said. "Obviously you want to perform at your best. That’s all I’m worried about right now. Like I said with the speed, we’ll revisit this topic about a couple years down the line."